


An End and A Beginning

by writewithurheart



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: Gen, Post Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7242310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writewithurheart/pseuds/writewithurheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Reese meets Dr. Rhodes shortly after quitting her stay in Pathology and they talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An End and A Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written any purely Chicago Med fics yet, but I like the dynamic with Reese and Rhodes and I wanted to explore it more...this definitely wasn't where I thought this thing was going to go, but I hope you like it! 
> 
> This may turn into a drabble collection...I'm not sure yet. I was bored so I wrote a thing.

**An End and A Beginning**

“Reese?”

She blinks in startled surprise as her head jerks up from her steady perusal of the tiled waiting room floor. “Doctor Rhodes?”

“Shouldn’t you be down in Pathology?”

Should she? Sarah knows he didn’t mean it as a philosophical question and honestly, she’s not sure of the answer. Except that she just quit pathology and she’s never felt better.  Joey wasn’t going to be happy with her decision – he’d been so excited about the prospect of them working together – but this wasn’t about him. It was about her.

Sarah wasn’t the same girl she used to be, the one who thought trauma and living patients were too scary for her. She had grown more in the last year than she ever imagined possible. Even in med school, even in the EMT courses she’d taken in high school, she’d never been a fan of working with conscious people who fought back and lashed out in pain. The clinical side was what fascinated her.

Until the Chicago Med ED.

Here she’d seen fast moving cases, struggled to understand what ailed her patients, learned how to operate and how to act when lives were on the line. And despite her original struggles, she succeeded.  A large part in thanks to the man before her.

Which is probably why she blurts it out:

“I quit.”

“What?” He asks, a polite frown on her face.

The laugh bursts from her as a smile lights up her face. “I quit. Pathology.”

Rhodes grins at her enthusiasm. “I’d ask if you’re sure, but…”

She laughs again, shaking her head. “It’s crazy. I know it is. It’s insane. I have no job lined up and I just quit my best chance at a future. But it feels right. It’s like there’s a weight off my chest. And I don’t know what I’m going to do. Everyone probably thinks I’ve lost my mind, but I don’t care.”

His smile fades a little in cessation to the sadness in his eyes as he looks away. Her gut twists her him at that look. His face is meant for smiles. It holds them so well, brightening those around him. He’s really an amazing person. And Sarah may or may not have a crush on him. She’s not admitting to anything, but if she was it would just be a little baby attraction and nothing more.

But he doesn’t deserve to look that sad.

“I’m sorry about Dr. Downey.”

He grimaces, looking up at her with his head still hanging.

“He was a good man and an amazing doctor.” She didn’t know Downey well, he’d been in the room during one of the cases she was assisting on and she ran into him in the cafeteria once or twice. She’d truthfully call him eccentric, but she’d watched one of his surgeries, seen him work. It was miraculous really.

“You don’t have to say that, you know. I’ve had enough of empty condolences for a lifetime.”

She shakes her head. “I meant it.” He doesn’t look convinced. “I got tired of hearing it too.”

He nods in that knowing way every person who lost someone young has.  “Thank you.”

“Are you leaving?” Sarah points at the doors ten feet away.

“Yeah, I’m taking some time off.”

To grieve, remains unsaid. She stands, straightening her jacket. “Where’re you headed?”

He glances at her as she falls into step with him. “Downey asked me to do something…after the funeral…” He shakes his head as if to banish a thought. “What about you? Now that you’ve quit? What are you going to do?”

Sarah’s eyes latch on the cars moving down the street, fiddling with her necklace, the last gift she got from her parents. They had always told her to follow her heart, to listen to her gut. Her father wouldn’t have understood why she quit pathology, but her mother…her mother had once packed all her bags and started on an Around-The-World adventure with only her waitressing tips in her pocket.

Ester Reese had been an amazing woman, but Sarah had always felt more like her father: calm, level-headed, logic to a fault. Her mother had always wanted her to indulge her wild side more.

“I think I’m going to travel the world,” she declares. “Like my mother did.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

Sarah falters. Joey probably knows by now. A small part of her is convinced that quitting pathology is in line with breaking up with Joey. It’s not as simple as that, but it’s going to drive a wedge between them. He’s not going to understand.

“I have to do this. For me. You know?” Not that Joey isn’t important. This just isn’t about him.

“Trust me, I get it.” He chuckles. “I ran away to Guadalajara to escape my family.”

“It just feels like the right time.” She knows she’ll probably freak out later tonight, breathing into a paper bag in her apartment’s kitchen. Even after that, after she’s cried and nearly pulled her hair out worrying about her future, she knows this conviction will stay. Just like the creeping feeling she had when requesting a placement. She knew she would regret it then.

But maybe it’s for the best.

“Then I wish you luck, Doctor Reese. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

She smiles up at him as she backs away towards the bus stop to take her home. “You too, Doctor Rhodes.”

“You’re going to be a great doctor,” he says, voice so soft the wind yanks it away but not before Sarah hears the words.

That’s when she decides that somehow, someway she’s going to make it back here.

Somehow she’s going to prove him right.


End file.
